XCOM Message Board older than one year ago

Sign-in to post

Posted by IGN Oct 08 2012 15:06 GMT
- Like?
Part of IGN's Walkthrough for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Posted by IGN Oct 08 2012 15:05 GMT
- Like?
Part 5 of IGN's Walkthrough for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Posted by IGN Oct 08 2012 15:04 GMT
- Like?
Part 4 of IGN's Walkthrough for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Posted by IGN Oct 08 2012 15:03 GMT
- Like?
Part 3 of IGN's Walkthrough for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Posted by IGN Oct 08 2012 15:02 GMT
- Like?
Part 2 of IGN's Walkthrough for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Posted by IGN Oct 08 2012 15:01 GMT
- Like?
Part 1 of IGN's Walkthrough for XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Posted by Kotaku Oct 08 2012 12:00 GMT
- Like?
#review XCOM: Enemy Unknown should have been a disaster. It's a turn-based strategy title, a style of game its publisher said only last year was "just not contemporary". It's also a remake of a cult classic 1990's PC game, beloved by an audience so fickle that a modern version should be the most offensive entertainment product of the year. More »

Posted by IGN Oct 04 2012 12:00 GMT
- Like?
Are you ready to save earth from the alien threat? Whose lives will you risk come October 9th?

YouTube
Posted by Kotaku Oct 03 2012 18:30 GMT
- Like?
#xcom Watch XCOM designer Jake Solomon try to sell his new strategy game to customers at a game store. It is not an easy sell. Even to people with Xboxes in their cars. More »

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Oct 01 2012 09:00 GMT
- Like?

Well, it may have become a third-person shooter, rather than the first-person shooter 2K Marin’s divisive XCOM was originally billed as. \Kotaku have seen a opinion-monitoring survey allegedly allegedly allegedly sent out to punters by 2K, which contains apparent screenshots of a third-person view that seems to have a heightened focus on squad play.(more…)


Posted by Kotaku Oct 01 2012 01:00 GMT
- Like?
#rumor While everyone gets excited over Firaxis' very-promising XCOM remake, it's easy to forget that there was once another XCOM game on the cards from 2K. One we haven't seen nor heard from for a very long time. More »

Posted by Kotaku Sep 29 2012 01:00 GMT
- Like?
#angermanagement You probably don't know Elizabeth Tobey. She didn't voice an outrageous character or design an outlandish weapon in any video game you're currently enjoying. But she did, legitimately, have a hand in the creation of —or at least stirring up the desire for—two big 2K Games hitting shelves right now. And she didn't get the credit she deserved. More »

Posted by Kotaku Aug 10 2012 16:30 GMT
- Like?
#xcomenemyunknown Call it beginner's luck: my first round of XCOM: Enemy Unknown's multiplayer was my strongest showing. It came down to a tense showdown at the end. I lost, but could feel proud of how close I had come. Alas, that was my best performance. From there, I got my rear end most thoroughly handed to me. More »

Posted by Kotaku Aug 10 2012 14:00 GMT
- Like?
#xcomenemyunknown Last week, I was invited to spend some time at Firaxis to see the new XCOM. Early Wednesday morning, I hopped in the car and braved the DC morning rush to wind my way to an unassuming office building just north of Baltimore. More »

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun May 25 2012 17:00 GMT
- Like?

After playing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Adam sat down with associate producer Pete Murray and asked him about some of the changes that have been made, as well as seeking clarification on a number of issues. Discussion of the chryssalids’ new look attracts the wrath of an unseen assailant, queries about base invasions lead to talk of balance and punishment, and an unhealthy interest is shown in the various ways that a soldier can bleed to death.

(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun May 23 2012 18:00 GMT
- Like?

Yesterday I shared my brief experiences with XCOM’s tactical mode, telling the tale of terrified men and women sent to their untimely deaths as I gleefully discovered that any confidence I had was misplaced. They sure did die a lot. I didn’t die with them though because I’m the commander, sitting in my base and commanding. The scariest thing I have to do in person is deal with the financials and the sinister Council who administer them, that and the occasional moral dilemma.

(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun May 22 2012 21:02 GMT
- Like?

I hope you’re all now familiar enough with the Walker Principle to have assumed that XCOM wouldn’t be released on its stated release date. As surely as the Sun rises in the morning and floats off into outer space, there was no chance the concerning FPS remake of the classic strategy game would appear on the 6th March 2012. And you’d have to be a fool to then believe it could come in the months after, last November’s slip pushing it into 2K’s “fiscal 2013″. Well, now only two months into that mad-money-date, it’s been announced as slipping again, this time all the way into fiscal year 2014. Which starts next April. Because of the reasons.

(more…)


Posted by Joystiq May 22 2012 21:27 GMT
- Like?
XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the strategy game, is still coming on October 9, but XCOM the shooter is growing ever more distant. Take-Two's latest earnings report gives the game a "fiscal year 2014" date, which puts it between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014.

The previous release window announcement put it in the previous fiscal year - and that announcement was, itself, a delay from a proposed March 6, 2012 release date. At this point, 2K is racing against science; if engineers of the future develop a method to contact and interact with alien life for real, this game will suddenly seem less exotic.

Posted by Giant Bomb May 22 2012 20:40 GMT
- Like?
How much will XCOM change between now and its release? Hard to say. It's going dark again.

2K Games has been playing hot potato with its shooter-tinged reboot of XCOM since it began development, and today pushed it back again, confirming it won’t show up until at least April 1, 2013.

No, this does not impact the strategy game. That game was just given a release date: October 9. You can breathe easy.

Specifically, parent company Take-Two Interactive announced XCOM is scheduled for release during fiscal year 2014, which lands between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014. So, a ways away.

The company adopted a similar strategy with the soon-to-be-released Spec Ops: The Line, choosing to delay and significantly retool it, rather than just releasing what it had. It’s unclear whether the extra time will prove valuable for Spec Ops: The Line, but at least Take-Two gave it a shot.

XCOM looked significantly different between its original showing in E3 2010 and E3 2011, and to be honest, I liked both versions. It’s a radical departure from its strategy roots, but we’re getting that, too. Everyone wins!


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun May 22 2012 12:00 GMT
- Like?

It’s Alec who normally brings you the latest on Firaxis’ XCOM remake so I expect you shall be somewhat confused to hear that I actually played it last week. Alec will probably never forgive me for taking what he saw as his rightful place but he was too busy being rained on in Greece to defend the Earth from invasion. I didn’t manage to protect anyone from the invasion either but I did cause a few soldiers to die trying. They might have specialisations and there might be less of them per squad, but the poor sods are as vulnerable as ever. This is how they died.

(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun May 18 2012 18:00 GMT
- Like?

With their Guile haircuts and their baggy jumpsuits, the original members of X-COM couldn’t suppress an alien if their lives depended on it and, boy, did their lives ever depend on it. The new XCOM are all about suppression though. There’s nothing they love better than pinning some hapless sectoid behind a car and then flanking the mind-probing little bastard. Of course, all this suppression and whatnot is change and change can be more frightening than a chrysalid in a confined space. Here is a developer diary that intends to explain why modernisation is not necessarily the enemy you know.

(more…)


Posted by Joystiq Apr 30 2012 20:30 GMT
- Like?
Three of the developers behind recent BioShock games have started their own studio, called The Fullbright Company, with the simple goal to "make a great game." The Fullbright Company is Steve Gaynor, Johnnemann Nordhagen and Karla Zimonja. As Gaynor describes it, perhaps their goal isn't so "simple" after all:

"A memorable experience that you'll be drawn into, and keep thinking about after the game's turned off, and want to come back to again someday. An experience that gets away from the constraints of ossified game genres, while relying on what we're good at as a team: creating immersive places to inhabit, and a deep, personal story to explore at your own pace. A nonviolent game in an unfantastical locale; an experience that not many games provide, built out of techniques that only video games can employ."

The trio have worked on BioShock 2, Minerva's Den, BioShock Infinite and XCOM. Gaynor wrote and was design lead on Minerva's Den, if that gives anyone confidence in this new studio. Fullbright promises more updates and information on its site "soon."

Posted by Giant Bomb Mar 06 2012 19:45 GMT
- Like?

If you want a prime example of how fickle (and sometimes needlessly dismissive) the video gaming audience can often be, look no further than 2K's upcoming multiheaded XCOM reboot attack. For a long while, we've known about 2K Marin's XCOM game, a shooter that blends the universe and some of the more strategic elements of the classic PC game. We've known about this far longer than we've known about Firaxis' more traditionally strategy-focused XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Because of this, we spent a long time watching as fans of the original XCOM games groused and grumbled about the fact that 2K Marin's XCOM wasn't really XCOM enough for their tastes. They dared to do something different with a beloved franchise, and that wasn't cool--at least, of course, until 2K finally got around to announcing Enemy Unknown. Now, suddenly, there was a "real" XCOM game, so the fact that a purportedly less real XCOM game existed wasn't as big of a deal.

The XCOM you knew (and feared) is pretty much front and center in Enemy Unknown.

To correct a common misconception, it's worth noting that both of these XCOM reboots/re-imaginings have been in development for nearly the same amount of time. Firaxis has been hard at work on Enemy Unknown for more than three years, and the two teams, while not collaborating directly, have often communicated back and forth to give each other a sense of what the other is doing. Basically, if you think that 2K suddenly brought out Enemy Unknown as a response to some of the more rancorous criticism coming from Internet commenters, then you're officially not giving Firaxis nearly enough credit. A proper XCOM remake is not something you can just put together in 18 months. Otherwise, why wouldn't some other studio have done it already?

According to Enemy Unknown's lead designer Jake Solomon, the idea of working on an XCOM remake/reboot/re-imaginging/whatever you want to call it has been in his blood for years. He's a superfan of the original games, as are some of the other key leads on the project I spoke to. Everybody at Firaxis wanted to make this game. To put it in the words of Firaxis art director Greg Foertsch, "I was ready. I was so ready."

What's Old Is New Again

What's really fascinating about Enemy Unknown is how closely it hews to the design and pace of the original XCOM--a game made 18 years ago, by the way. And yet, looking at it up close, I found myself unable to really think up other recent examples of games like XCOM that exist on modern hardware. There are strategy games, some that use both real-time and turn-based mechanics, but none quite like what MicroProse and Mythos Games developed all those years prior.

In that regard, seeing a game like XCOM: Enemy Unknown played is a familiar experience that suddenly feels new, and fresh. As Foertsch described it, "We think the market's right for something like this. The consoles are older than the last generation had gotten, so the console market is maturing, and not only that, but the gamers are maturing. I think you'll find a lot of people that want something that's familiar, but twisted. And that's a new experience."

But exactly how twisted, and how familiar, is this experience?

XCOM: Upgraded

Seeing XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I wasn't able to put my hands on a controller (we probably won't get any hands-on time for a few months yet), but in watching lead producer Garth DeAngelis play for a room full of writers with varying degrees of familiarity with the franchise, and hearing Solomon describe the concepts and motivations behind each design decision, it wasn't too difficult to imagine how all this stuff works. After all, it really does look a lot like XCOM.

This new Berzerker unit is one of several new enemies in Enemy Unknown. Don't worry though, there are plenty of old favorites.

The squad-based, turn-based combat system of old has obviously been transported to a 3D realm in Enemy Unknown, but that extra dimension hasn't drastically altered the idea of what XCOM is. Fundamentally, you're still positioning your soldiers in key areas to best take out hordes of alien monsters. The plot was barely described, but suffice it to say, there are aliens, we don't know what their deal is, but we do know that they're fond of abducting humans, and we're not especially cool with that. Hence all the volleys of gunfire and explosions.

The game maintains an isometric viewpoint, but adds a number of layers to the previous combat design. For starters, there are now cover points, which players can position their soldiers in to give them the best, safest vantage point to kill whatever alien scum happen to be hanging around. The battlefields will be hand-designed, but will still come up in random order, save for a few specific missions that are story-specific. The idea behind this, of course, is to ensure that the experience is different on subsequent playthroughs. So while the geometry and architecture are hand-built, the order in which you'll experience these levels is randomized, and odds are you won't see the same exact levels on subsequent playthroughs.

Combat maintains the turn-based design of old, but eliminates time units. Instead, on their turn, players can maneuver soldiers into a nearby zone and have them perform one of their attack abilities, or they can move them further away and skip out on combat for a turn. It's a simplified version of the risk/reward system of old, which some old school players may gripe about, but nonetheless looks perfectly sensible in practice.

For those who like their old things to remain unchanged, you'll be pleased to know that the fog of war remains just as prevalent in Enemy Unknown, and the concept of perma-death still exists.

Building Your Ant Farm

Of course, permanent death doesn't mean you'll just run out of soldiers at some point and the game is over--at least, not unless you're literally just terrible at managing your resources. Soldiers, like all other resources in the game, are a commodity that must be purchased. Once you do have a squad together, you can name them whatever you want, outfit them how you like, and through an RPG-lite system new to Enemy Unknown, you'll be able to upgrade and up-level them as the game goes along. Instead of crafting gigantic back stories for every procedurally generated grunt, this is how you're meant to grow attached to your squad. When you're highly leveled sniper suddenly ends up dead, that's going to really suck, because (at least theoretically) you've spent time building that character into something both useful and personal.

Perma-death is typically viewed nowadays as a rather harsh punishment in games, but in the context of XCOM, it was never a question of if it would make it into Enemy Unknown, but rather a question of how.

The "ant farm" is where you'll do all your research, engineering, and soldier training. It kinda reminds me of one of those old, gigantic G.I. Joe playsets.

"It's different," said Foertsch. "It makes it harder. It's a pillar of XCOM. There was never a question about whether we should take it out. It was always a part of the design."

Should squad members die (it seems likely that at least a few will, after all), you can purchase new ones, alongside other various things in the game's hub world, which the Firaxis guys affectionately referred to as the "ant farm." This is also where you'll do things like engineer new weapons, and research alien technologies. Again, it's all about resource management, as you'll have to be careful not to blow too much scratch on one thing or another. It's all about balance, and tuning your resources to your play style.

The other thing about the ant farm is that it just looks cool. I remarked to DeAngelis and Foertsch that it kind of reminded me of one of those old action figure playsets, like Castle Greyskull or the Real Ghostbusters' firehouse. According to those guys, that's not an altogether surprising comparison.

A Squad of Digital Action Figures

When I asked Foertsch what some of the inspirations for Enemy Unknown's art style were (apart from the obvious XCOM-related trappings), he immediately compared the character designs to classic action figure designs. In his words:

"When we did this pre-vis [an early video Firaxis showed to 2K before the project was greenlit], we basically used most of the company as a focus group, so they didn't know what I was working on. No one knew. So we showed them the pre-vis, like I had these meetings with the whole company for two days. Like people could just come in for 15 minutes, sit down, and just let me have it. Rip me apart. So they came in, and one of the guys...because I think there was a little bit of confusion with people, he was like, 'So, wait, you're making soldiers like Call of Duty?' And I was like, "No..." And his response was, 'Well, you know, they sort of look like action figures.' And that was it. 'You're right. You're absolutely right.' And while I'd been working on this for several months, I had not actually articulated that. And at that moment, I was like, 'That's what they are.' That was that moment that set us down this path."

It went a step further when Firaxis actually hired a few new employees with a deep-seated love of miniatures. The idea of your characters effectively becoming your toys that you play with might sound childish to some, but in truth, any video game character is really just a toy that you play with--some just have stronger narratives than others. In this case, the idea is to give you these fully customizable toys that can create varying types of explosive alien death. Kind of hard to find much fault with that.

Making XCOM Console-Viable

One serious question I see brought up again and again by fans is how, exactly, XCOM can be easily transported to consoles. The answer? It can't be. Not easily, at least. One thing that's helped is that development between the console and PC versions of the game has occurred in parallel.

The turn-based strategy gameplay certainly gives off the vibe of old school XCOM--just with more dimensions, and more detailed soldiers.

"I think it would have been a lot harder if we didn't treat them as separate things," said Foertsch. "Like, okay, here's the Xbox game, now port it to the PC? That would have been a problem. But that we've always treated them as parallel paths, especially from an interface standpoint, and that has actually made it a lot easier."

"It's been a challenge, but for me, especially from a production point of view," remarked DeAngelis. "I like putting constraints on things so we can get stuff done. To go to the design team and be like, 'Here's your controller. Tell me what we need from XCOM to map onto this controller.' So they really had to think about what was most important, and they really made it happen in an elegant way. I think we actually did some playtests, even just with some casual console players, without a tutorial, just handed them a controller and with just general gamer IQ, they were able to move around really quick and get into [combat.]"

The Great Unknown

There are still questions to be answered regarding XCOM: Enemy Unknown. While Firaxis claims that many of the battles will take place in multi-leveled scenery, the only level we've really seen thus far is the gas station section pictured above, which only has ground and rooftop levels. Similarly, we've seen little of what the research and engineering sections of the game will produce for the player. It's safe to assume that it will be a lot of special weaponry and gadgetry, but how all of it plays into the flow of combat remains to be seen.

Environments are, of course, destructible. Quite destructible, actually.

And then there is the subject of personality, or perhaps a slight lack thereof. The units look pretty great, in that over-exaggerated action figure-y way, but the vocals assigned to each character are of that bargain basement action hero variety that all-too-often permeates any game with guns and things to be shot. I heard at least a few kill-celebrating one-liners cheesy enough to make even the Gears of War team blush. With any luck, that's just temporary audio. Please, let that be temporary audio.

Those questions aside however, I feel safe in saying that Firaxis' vision of XCOM doesn't fall too far from the vision of XCOM that every superfan has had dancing in their heads at varying points over the course of the last 18 years. In a strange way, I'm perhaps the poster-child for the kind of player Firaxis is reaching out to most with this game. I enjoy XCOM, and am familiar with it, but also haven't touched the first game in a bit more than a decade. I am someone who gets XCOM, but is far enough out of touch with it that I might as well be a new player, coming to the series for the first time. As someone both familiar with the series, and rediscovering it anew, Enemy Unknown is a game I very much want to play. Supposedly I, and everyone else, will get to do just that later this year.

In the meantime, feel free to check out this developer-narrated video look at XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and see for yourself how Firaxis has blended old and new into something that, certainly in this day and age, looks quite unique.


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Mar 06 2012 13:01 GMT
- Like?

Last week, I finally got to see XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis’ X-COM remake, with my own failing eyes. I have various things to post about it over the coming days, but let’s start with a break down of what made my little belly flutter with excitement and what made my weak jaw clench with anxiety. It’s X-COM, but… not. Here’s why.(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Feb 06 2012 16:54 GMT
- Like?

You’ve read an awful lot about XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Firaxis’ remake of the original, the legendary X-COM, in our fact’n'theory-fat 13,000 word interview with project lead Jake Solomon here, but the only images we’ve been able to show you thus far are tiny 600 pixel jobbies you need to squint at to make much out. How cruel we were. But how lovely we now are: here are 16 high-res shots to scrutinise for signs of extra information, tribute and/or betrayal. Click on each – including the one above – for an embiggened version.(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Feb 03 2012 16:51 GMT
- Like?

In the third and final (for now) part of my enormo-chat with Firaxis’ Jake Solomon, head brain on XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the official remake of the legendary X-COM, we get into the nitty-gritty. To whit: why throw out time units, how the replacement system works, modding support, difficulty, soldier classes, country funding, Julian Gollop, ‘ZCOM’ and why he feels this new game has to bear the X-COM name.

(more…)


Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Feb 01 2012 12:09 GMT
- Like?

They did it. They really did it. As we unexpectedly discovered last month, Firaxis are remaking/reimagining the original X-COM, the 1993 title that is quite rightly often hailed as the greatest game ever made. Recently, I had a long chat with XCOM: Enemy Unknown’s lead designer Jake Solomon – in this first of three parts, he talks how, why, when, the response to the controversial XCOM shooter, Cyberdiscs, whether it’s being simplified for console, 2K’s infamous ‘strategy games aren’t contemporary’ comment and missing hyphens. (more…)


Posted by Joystiq Jan 29 2012 18:30 GMT
- Like?
2K Marin is busy busting some alien assignations with the first-person version of XCOM, but apparently it has plenty of artillery to throw around. J.R. Hogarth de la Plante, one of the founders of 2K Marin in 2007 and the lead artist/level architect on the BioShock series, lists an "Unannounced Title" for which he is the art director, right on his resume.

Hogarth de la Plante doesn't describe the new title itself, but does explain that it's a brand new IP that he and four other directors are inventing and pitching internally. If it's still open to improvisation, Mr. Hogarth, may we suggest a stylized, top-down 2D adventure, played as a Little Sister as she fights her way through the terrifying realm of 1980s high school? You're welcome.

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Jan 20 2012 15:07 GMT
- Like?

Monolithic (yet huggable and surprisingly good dancers) gaming culture chaps EDGE have an interview with Julian Gollop, the original creator of the XCOM series. With the upcoming reboots exciting and enraging fans in equal measure, the man who made the terrifying tactical turn-based treat has a lot to say on the new XCOMs: “It was a bit disappointing from my point of view and for many fans of X-COM. When from out of the blue we heard that Firaxis are doing a turn-based version, it’s as if 2K are trying to cover all their bets.”(more…)